


Stick Together

by orphan_account



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Cid is a grumpy old man, Cloud thinks he's slick, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Team as Family, alternate course of events immediately following Meteor and Sephiroth and all that, basically domestic fluff, kind of smut? it's not explicit, pretty much not compliant with events of the compilation in other words, spoiler: he's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5711107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It didn't have to mean something unless Cloud wanted it to, and even Cloud didn't know what he wanted.</p><p>That was a lie. He knew one thing: for their makeshift family to last a little longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stick Together

 

 

When the fight was over, and the Planet saved, Cloud thought he'd put everything behind him. He thought he'd finally get a fresh start. The past was the past, and now they had a future to look forward to.

Cloud's past, however, was not so easily brushed aside by those around him. He understood, but still it irritated him. He'd done everything he was supposed to. He'd owned up to what really happened. Once the memories fell into place the right way, he knew what was real and what was fantasy. He knew he would never get them confused again, and he wished that was good enough to get them to drop it.

It wasn't, and they didn't. He tolerated it mostly. That tolerance wore itself thinnest when they brought up Zack. The Ex-SOLDIER was a frequent point of interest for those who didn't yet have all the pieces of the story, or at least he was until recently. Everyone but Yuffie now knew to keep their curiosity quiet. It was all thanks to Tifa. Cloud would come to appreciate it, but only after the fact.

One night in the command deck of the Highwind, drinks flowing freely and all other subjects but Cloud's psyche exhausted, she ended up theorizing that maybe Cloud had loved him, and maybe that explained why he reacted the way he did. Cloud didn't feel he'd earned the right to reject the topic altogether (not when he'd lied to them for so long) but he did fall quiet, and very still, until she had the tact to steer the conversation elsewhere.

But that was Tifa. Always looking for an explanation, always wanting things to wrap up nicely in the end with everyone happy. All their problems solved and all their hurts healed.

Vincent wasn't like that. He didn't do leaps of faith. He didn't expect Cloud to come out of this whole, because he'd been around too long for that kind of idealism.

Vincent wasn't like Zack, either. Maybe superficially, in a sense. He had the height, and almost the hair — enough of a passing similarity that Cloud had, on more than occasion, looked up and been momentarily startled by the sight of him entering a low-lit room without the cloak and headband. Just for an instant the years would bend and blur, and then he'd notice the arm, and the way the moonlight glinted off it, and the cold eyes that _did_ faintly glow, but not Mako blue.

He didn't have Zack's warmth. None of his optimism, his easy laughter, his devil-may-care approach to danger that put Cloud's heart in his throat. Nothing of the way it felt like holding the sun in orbit to have him close.

Where Zack was loud, Vincent was silent. He used his words wisely or not at all — which most of the time led to a deathly quiet around him. Some of the others found it unsettling. Cloud took comfort in it. He'd done enough talking to last a lifetime.

The irony was, for all the times he let the others root through his mind (in Tifa's case, quite literally), he came to realize that it was only Vincent he would open up to willingly. If he asked, Cloud would tell him things he'd never be able to voice to the others, the ones who'd taken it upon themselves to try and fix him. Vincent knew just _how_ he was unfixable. Vincent alone knew what it was to have one's body made less human, more monster, against their will.

They never spoke of it. They mostly didn't speak at all, but it was enough. Cloud considered himself fortunate that Vincent was both discreet and razor-sharp at picking up on the unspoken. Vincent understood what it was between them. More like stress relief than a big deal. It didn't have to mean something unless Cloud wanted it to, and even Cloud didn't know what he wanted.

That was a lie. He knew one thing: for their makeshift family to last a little longer. It was already beginning to scatter, starting with those most attached to their homelands. Nanaki went back to his Canyon. Yuffie made for Wutai. Cid could only guarantee sticking around as long as they needed the Highwind; just being on board became a subtle reminder that eventually they'd have to find a place to settle. Reeve had never been involved in their personal lives before Cait Sith, and that didn't change now.

Barret talked of wanting to go home, sometimes, of wanting to take Marlene back to Corel. More often, he looked at Cloud and Tifa like he didn't want to leave them. Cloud appreciated that. At least the three of them had each other, if next to nothing else.

Vincent was a wild card. He had no one and nowhere to go back to, but it was anyone's guess if he wanted to stay. While Barret dismissed it and Tifa fretted, Cloud told them he would find out.

 

 

Whenever they would land the Highwind near a town, to stock up on supplies or upgrade gear, they'd rent out rooms in the local inn. It was easier, then, to get privacy.

On this particular night they'd been confined to the airship for nearly two weeks. As a result Cloud was settling for this: unforgiving steel at his back, and digging into his hips, and Vincent close enough for them to be breathing the same steam-saturated air. The tiny room's only purpose was to allow servicing of the engine boilers. They were unlikely to be discovered here, and only then if some piece of machinery malfunctioned. In which case they'd have bigger problems to worry about anyway.

Cloud didn't mean to bring it up the way he did. He'd even planned what he would say, but all that vanished when the time came. He'd been clear-headed, before; now, between the heat and lack of oxygen and the slow burn of Vincent's body against his, that level of reasoning was beyond him.

He rested his head on Vincent's shoulder and let his words ghost over his skin.

"Are you leaving, too?"

Vincent didn't pause in anything he was doing — only slowed just enough to show he was distracted. "Do you expect me to?"

Cloud ignored the tightness in his throat and answered honestly. "Yes."

Vincent did stop, then. He shifted, bracing himself with an arm on the rusted metal behind Cloud so he could properly see his face. Cloud let his head fall back and met his eyes, undaunted by the intensity he found there.

"I hadn't made a decision yet," Vincent replied evenly. The light from the cabin was almost non-existent here, but it was enough for Cloud to see the unnatural stillness and composure in the way he held himself. "I didn't think there was any great rush."

 _There isn't_ , Cloud thought. "Cid needs his ship back," he said. It wasn't his fault he couldn't be content, that his mind would always rush ahead to the next problem on the horizon. It was part of why they were still alive, but it wasn't so useful in peacetime.

Vincent didn't seem to mind. "Where were you thinking of landing?"

Cloud hesitated. None of the possibilities he'd thought of seemed entirely appealing. "Nibelheim, maybe?" he tried, failing to keep unease from creeping into his voice.

Vincent held his gaze and didn't respond.

"Barret's vote is probably North Corel," Cloud pointed out.

He knew Vincent was thinking it too. That it was the same problem Cloud and Tifa had with Nibelheim. They would never stop missing their hometowns, but going back meant taking the bad memories with the good.

"There's always Costa del Sol," Cloud suggested after too long a silence, barely audible above the hum of machinery. He felt Vincent's subdued laugh more than he heard it, and a hint of a smile spread across his lips. "Or Mideel. Beachfront property. We could lay in the sun all day."

"I'm not sure—"

He abandoned the sentence when Cloud kissed him. They didn't do much talking after that.

 

 

"Yeah, he's coming with us," Cloud told Tifa in passing on his way down to the Operation Room.

"What?" she turned and followed him out of the bridge. "He said that?"

"No. But he is."

She stood in the doorway, waiting for an explanation that never came, watching him saunter away and out of sight.

 

 

It was quieter than any place Cloud had been for months. Away from the smog and city lights, the only sounds were the cries of birds, and wind in the rushes, and waves breaking gently on the shore.

"I told you it was a good idea."

Barret gave a low laugh from behind him, where he was occupied with tethering up the golden chocobo from their first supply run. Vincent made no comment, and Tifa pulled the shawl tighter around herself.

"Not a very warm beach."

"Well, not this time of year," Cloud conceded. Regardless, he was stubbornly dressed in his lightest summer clothes. "But just you wait for peak season. Finest beaches west of Mt. Nibel."

Tifa and Vincent exchanged a look over the lounge chair he was settled into, but Cloud didn't bother to react.

"Will he ever speak to us again?" Vincent wondered aloud. Tifa turned in her seat to gaze past the cottage and out into the grassland spreading to the horizon. In the distance, they could just make out the shape of a familiar airship in the shadow of the great scaffolding that once held a rocket.

Cloud shrugged, and slid his new pair of sunglasses into place. "He can't stay mad at us for long."

Because inevitably, the urge for adventure would come back, and when it did they would be right here. Giving him an excuse to take to the skies again.

 

 

 


End file.
